The objective of this study is to analyze the ability of the public management of environmental problems faced by the municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The theoretical elements that underlie this article are related to environmental management and municipal public administration. We used the results of the natural vulnerability and the social potential of the indicator of municipal environmental management, as well as data on sanitation and waste disposal. The weaknesses of public administration are located in the counties of low population group. These municipalities do not have suitable structure, formal organization and power of decisiveness in dealing with environmental problems.

This paper elaborates on the role of green technologies and innovations in “greening” Brazil’s Amazon region fresh water resources. The paper elaborates on the development of an innovation quadruple helix to better manage the region’s water resources. Brazil accounts for close to 12% of the earth’s fresh water reserves, while most of it is in the Amazon region. The preservation of water reserves on a global scale is of paramount importance in the 21st century. Brazil, however, has not managed its water resources effectively leading to the increasing pollution and contamination of its Amazonian water resources.

Gunatilaka, A., Moscetta, P. and Sanfilippo, L. (2012) Recent Advancements in Water Quality Monitoring—The Use of Miniaturized Sensors and Novel Analytical Measuring Techniques for in Situ and On-Line Real Time Measurements.http://www.mendedreality.com

Gouvea, R. and Kassicieh, S. (2010) Building an Eco-Innovation Cluster: Water Cluster in the Brazilian Amazon Region. International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development, 1, 27-39.http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jsesd.2010040103

Vegetables and fruits are grown worldwide and play an important role in human diets because they provide vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals. Vegetables and fruits are also associated with improvement of gastrointestinal health, good vision, and reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic diseases such as diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Vegetable and fruit production suffers from many biotic stresses caused by pathogens, pests, and weeds and requires high amounts of plant protection products per hectare. United States vegetables farmers are benefiting from growing transgenic squash cultivars resistant to Zucchini yellow mosaic virus, Watermelon mosaic virus, and Cucumber mosaic virus, which were deregulated and commercialized since 1996. Bt-sweet corn has also proven effective for control of some lepidopteran species and continues to be accepted in the fresh market in the USA, and Bt-fresh-market sweet corn hybrids are released almost every year. Likewise, transgenic Bt-eggplant bred to reduce pesticide use is now grown by farmers in Bangladesh. Transgenic papaya cultivars carrying the coat-protein gene provide effective protection against Papaya ring spot virus elsewhere. The transgenic “Honey Sweet” plum cultivar provides an interesting germplasm source for Plum pox virus control. Enhanced host plant resistance to Xanthomonascampestris pv. musacearum, which causes the devastating banana Xanthomonas wilt in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, was achieved by plant genetic engineering. There are other vegetable and fruit crops in the pipeline that have been genetically modified to enhance their host plant resistance to insects and plant pathogens, to show herbicide tolerance, and to improve features such as slow ripening that extends the shelf-life of the produce. Consumers could benefit further from eating more nutritious transgenic vegetables and fruits. Transgenic plant breeding therefore provides genetically enhanced seed embedded technology that contributes to integrated pest management in horticulture by reducing pesticide sprays as well as improving food safety by minimizing pesticide residues. Furthermore, herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops can help reducing plough in fields, thereby saving fuel because of less tractor use, which also protects the structure of the soil by reducing its erosion. Transgenic vegetable and fruit crops could make important contributions to sustainable vegetable production and for more nutritious and healthy food. Countries vary, however, in their market standards of acceptance of transgenic crops. Biotechnology products will be successful if clear advantages and safety are demonstrated to both growers and consumers.

Kameswara-Rao, C. (2010) Moratorium on Bt Brinjal: A Review of the Order of the Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India. Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Bangalore.

Diaz de la Garza, R.I., Quinlivan, E.P., Klaus, S.M.J., Basset, G.J.C., Gregory, J.F. and Hanson, A.D. (2004) Folate Biofortification in Tomatoes by Engineering the Pteridine Branch of Folate Synthesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 13720-13725. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0404208101

Diaz de la Garza, R.I., Gregory, J.F. and Hanson, A.D. (2007) Folate Biofortification of Tomato Fruit. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 4218-4222.http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0700409104

Morris, J., Hawthorne, K.M., Hotze, T., Abrams, S.A. and Hirschi, K.D. (2008) Nutritional Impact of Elevated Calcium Transport Activity in Carrots. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 1431-1435. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0709005105

Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the Third World Academy of Sciences (2000) Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture. National Academies Press, Washington DC.

Union of the German Academies of Science and Humanities (2006) Are There Health Hazards for the Consumers from Eating Genetically Modified Foods? Interacademy Panel Initiative on Genetically Modified Organisms, Berlin.http://www.ilsi.org/NorthAmerica/Documents/UGASH.pdf

An average energy consumption distribution in household at the worldwide level illustrates that more than three quarters of total consumption is contributed to room heating and almost 12% to water heating for all the living necessities. Although a slow fall of domestic energy consumption has occurred in the recent 20 years (from 1990 to 2011) with a regular decrease between ?1.2% and ?1.4%/year per dwelling as a result of a decrease income corresponding to the economic crisis in 2008, whereas energy prices for households has increase since 2004, the energy cost of paying especially for space heating and domestic hot water (DHW) supplying is still going up. At the EU level, the building sector including residential, commercial and other service buildings is regarded as the key to greater energy efficiency, because according to statistics the final energy consumption for building sector has taken the largest proportion about 40% until 2020, which is apparently higher than the share in transportation sector by 32% and industry sector by 24%. In the scope of the ongoing research and investigation on energy efficiency in residential fields and its impact on environment and climate how to investigate smart energy management methods for the promotion of sustainable consumption and green living patterns has been already paid much attention, however it has to be studied further and thoroughly, in particular among energy consumer groups whose energy costs have no or just little relevance or dependence on major income source, which leads to a lack of energy saving awareness by users. Energy consumers living in social housing buildings represent this kind of energy consumer group which receive the governmental relief fund as their family income at a great measure, they have different culture, educational and age backgrounds. This paper presents firstly some research results based on authors’ practical experiences on the projects about energy efficiency in social housing buildings in European countries, which is supposed to be introduced in the aspects of subjective and objective energy saving potentials. It is proposed to be able to provide valuable and referential advices exchange our experience on a sustainable development in affordable housing.

United Nations. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, “Guidebook on Promotion of Sustainable Energy Consumption: Consumer Organizations and Efficient Energy Use in the Residential Sector,” United Nations 2002, pp. 5.

<span “=””>The use of organic wastes, as an alternative to inorganic fertilizer, can be an important strategy for Brazilian and tropical agriculture. Despite the importance, few field studies have been done evaluating organic amendments on soybean crops in Brazil. The study aimed to evaluate the residual effects of the organic amendments poultry litter, farmyard manure and biochar combined with mineral fertilizer on some agronomic attributes of a soybean crop. A field experiment was carried out in a split-split-plot scheme, with three replicates in a randomized block experimental design. The organic sources (plots) at rates of 0, 3, 6 and 9 Mg·ha-1 (subplots) combined with 0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 kg·ha-1 (sub subplots) of a mineral fertilizer were applied in 2008. In 2009, only the mineral fertilizer was used on the soybean crop. As result, all evaluated attributes were influenced by the treatments, except the number of grains per pod. The application of poultry litter provided the highest yield (3715 kg·ha-1 using 9 Mg·ha-1 of the source). A synergistic effect between organic amendments and mineral fertilizer was observed. It was found the possibility of decrease doses of mineral fertilizers by prior use of organic amendments. The most effective dose combination application is 5.5 Mg·ha-1 of organic amendments associated with 200 kg·ha-1 of mineral fertilizer to provide optimum yield. The use of organic amendments, rich in nutrients, is a technology to sustainably increase the soybean grain yield.

The present study addresses the global concern of sustainability in building and construction engineering and how to an extent the use of demolished aggregate wastes in concrete production contributes towards ameliorating or minimizing the problem. The influence of demolished aggregate waste on the mechanical strength and stiffness of concrete are examined from the standpoint of the compressive, split tensile and flexural strengths as well as the modulus of elasticity of the concrete. In this respect the research carried out by previous investigators are noted. It is observed that in the Southern African region in general and Botswana in particular there is a paucity of studies on the subject, and consequently, it is concluded that further investigations need to be conducted utilizing aggregates derived from local wastes or sources.

United Nations General Assembly (1987) Report of the Working Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to Document A/42/427—Development and International Co-Operation: Environment, Our Common Future, Chapter 2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

UNEP (2011) De-Coupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. Report of the Working Group on De-Coupling to the International Resource Panel, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.

This paper presents a novel concept, the Hybrid Power Pack (HPP), which consists of a hybridization kit for transforming small city cars, powered by an original diesel engine, into a parallel hybrid vehicle. The study was jointly conducted by the University of Rome “Sapienza” and the Enea Casaccia research center. The idea is to design a hybrid powertrain that can be installed in a typical microcar, which means that all systems and components will be influenced by the limited space available in the motor compartment of the vehicle. In this paper the details of the mechanical and electrical realization of the powertrain will be discussed and the simulation of a small city car equipped with HPP will be presented and the results discussed and analyzed. The hybrid system also includes the battery pack which is composed of twenty-four Li-ion cells made by EIG, connected in series. The storage system is controlled as regards the voltage and temperature by a Battery Management System (BMS). All the above components are connected and managed by a control unit. The HPP presented in this paper obtains a reduction in fuel consumption higher than 20%. The solution presented with the HPP with its management strategy and the addition of the “plug-in function” makes the hybrid vehicle suitable in terms of performance and consumption in every driving conditions. The ideal strategy behind the “plug-in function” could represent a guideline for further achievements and experimentations, because it offers a simple hardware layout and a real reduction in fuel consumption.